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Maximising Christmas to New Year.

Boxing day and January sales

An increasingly important period of the retail calendar is between Christmas and New Year. This was traditionally a time to liquidate seasonal stock. What is most notable about this time of year is that a large percentage of the population have free time and often disposable income – Christmas spends. As a result, combined with the fact that they have been cooped up in a house with their friends and family for more than 24 hours in a straight stretch. So how to run a good sale!

Firstly from a window point of view, typically a retailer will utilise 2 windows, should you have two. One with seasonal products and one focused just on the sale. Next run sales throughout the year, are very good for distinguishing racks that have sale items and racks that are not sale items. This is very important so that a customer doesn’t feel that a sale is very poor. Having focussed areas for the sale products, allows you to draw focus to them and to target the customers to a particular area.

Offers aren’t limited to straight price reduction offers, 3 for 2 or get an accessory for a fraction of the price if bought with something else is a great way to give the customer great value, but funding it through sales you know you would not have made based on your previous experience and data analysis. It is also worth considering the process of the sale. How long will it last? Will it go from a initial straight sale through to a more price lead, through to a final clearance? What you do not want is your entire window display covered with sale items, posters and inside, there is just a half dwindled sale rack of products left.

So think how your sale will change from December 26th through to the end of January, should you run it that long.

In terms of merchandising, try and go for something simple, and most importantly persistent. Try and avoid homemade signs from Microsoft publisher or any other design applications you have got, unless you are a very skilled designer. Many of the clients I work with want to create there own brand for the sale, which can work, but there is something that is highly effective and ubiquitous about the word Sale, in that the people know exactly what they are going to get.

Corin Birchall is a Retail Sales & Marketing Consultant and founder of “Kerching Retail - helping to make your till ring”. His consultancy works throughout the UK and Europe.
Corin is an active writer, coach and public speaker, helping to develop and grow a wide range of businesses & business leaders from Leisure and Retail sectors